His Undoing

Chapter Two

THE CAMPBELL TOWN,

Year of 2003, May 24th

Julia stared at herself at the full height mirror, brushing her red wild curly hair. She was pleased to see that her body had matured very well over the passed years. She had curves at the right places, she was tall, and she had also progressed well at her womanly parts. But what she didn't like very much of how pale she was and how annoyingly wild her hair was. Her paleness always stood out no matter how many times she spent days out to get a bit of tan. She sometimes spent hours at the beaches or grocery shopping out in the streets in hot sunny days, but in result, her skin always toasted from heat, leaving it looking weird with lots of deep pink and red spots.

Eventually, she decided that she was going to be paled skin no matter what she tried. She tied her hair up in a bun to avoid all the wild curls from her face and walked away from the mirror to place her brush on the nightstand. She walked back to the mirror and cracked a big happy smile. Four more months until she turned twenty-two and then she will be in the arms of the man she desired since her teenage years!

She turned around in circles happily with her long skirt flowing gracefully around her, dancing widely. “Julia!” She abruptly stopped when she heard her father’s voice and fixed her hair to look as she didn’t just dance around in circles with joy.

She briefly checked herself in the mirror and when she got the satisfaction of looking proper, she answered “coming father”. She immediately made her way downstairs to see her father sitting on the sofa uncomfortably with a company. She suppressed a deep groan when she saw it was Robert Saw sitting beside her father with a ridiculously big smile on his lips.

He had been in love with her since she was betrothed to Henry. He was new in town back then and Julia was the first person he had meet at the neighbourhood and surprisingly, he was being more than friendly with her. George was always busy with his work at the fields and never thought the boy’s feelings were more than friendship towards his daughter and before he could stop it, it was already too late.

The boy was desperately in love with Julia and every time Julia insisted her father to tell Robert that she was already betrothed to another man, he couldn’t bring himself to do it seeing his big blue eyes, somehow begging him to not say anything that would break his heart and possibly cause him lose Julia. In result of that, Robert was always there early mornings in their living room, sitting beside George with the same big smile on his lips, waiting for Julia to come down.

As she entered the living room, immediately Robert got of his seat with his eyes twinkling as he just saw the most amazing thing in front of him.

“Good morning, Julia. How are you today?” He asked with giddiness, causing George to roll his eyes in annoyance. She smiled back, not wanting to show her frustration of his constant and unnoticed visits.

“I am doing very well Robert, how are you today?” She asked formally.

It seemed as if he was floating in the sky hearing her converse to him in such kind and pleasurable manner. His smile got even wider causing Julia to worry of him ripping his lips in two.

“Good, good. I was just buying some green apples when it made me think of you with the colour resembling your beautiful eyes and I couldn’t help but come over. I also bought some for you and they are very juicy.” He said as he lowered himself down and picked up a bag filled with apples.

Julia looked shocked at her father, begging him to say something that would stop Robert from bringing things to her, but his only response was shaking his head and shrugging his shoulder.

A feeling of annoyance crept up in Julia as she took the bag of apples from Robert and forced herself to smile pleasantly. “You shouldn’t have done this, Robert. You know we have a lot of these at the fields.” She said with as much aggravation she could conceal from her tone.

“I know that, Julia. But I wanted to.” He said looking at her with a hint of blush on his cheeks and locking and parting his hands together nervously. Oh lord, this is getting too far, Julia thought as she stared at him worriedly. He always smiled at her with giddiness, but never showed any sign of nervousness.

She had to do something and do it fast. She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. As she opened her eyes, she saw her father was already gone and Robert was looking at her with more anxiousness than ever.

“Robert, we need to talk.” She said as she sat down on the sofa and Robert followed along.

***

It was hard, but it was finally done. Robert had left her house broken hearted and she couldn’t help but feel horrible. It was her fault for not stopping Robert to fall in too deeply, or else he would’ve been able to find another girl and woo her with all his humorous techniques.

She walked to the kitchen and saw that her father had already made breakfast and was busy reading his newspaper. She sat down on the table and started serving herself food with proper manners as her father had taught her.

“He’s gone?” He asked not looking up from his paper. She nodded her head and mumbled “yes father”. He placed down the paper on the table and looked at his daughter.

Julia looked up at her father and immediately her nerves went wild. These kind of looks of his always meant it was important and usually about, Henry.

“I got a letter today from Rustam and he informed me that the wedding will be taking place in the next four months.” He spoke and Julia quickly nodded. She really didn’t need her father telling her when she was getting married for she counted every single day of when she was getting near to her wedding day.

“But they won’t be coming here…. we have to go to the city and get you married with Henry because unfortunately, Rustam has grown weak over the past year and does not have enough energy to travel so far.” Julia’s heart wrenched in pain as she heard her father’s words. Uncle Rustam, such a strong and carefree man was now in pain that he couldn’t afford to make a longer trip anymore?

She nodded her head in sadness looked down at her food.

“Therefore, you can start shopping or doing whatever you feel like because once you get married at the city, you will remain there and I will here.” Once again, Julia nodded her head and mumbled “alright, father.”

The rest of the morning breakfast went as quiet as it usually did, both the father and the daughter engaged in their own thoughts until the time came that George had to leave for the fields and Julia had to go and run the orphanage that was located right in front of her house.

THE END OF CHAPTER TWO......